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Dear Subscribers:

Many of you are new to our list this week, thanks to the recommendation of SafeKids.com at the end of the "Touched By an Angel" television show last Sunday night. Welcome! We like to think of our subscribers as a community, vital to the online well-being of kids. This community covers more than a dozen countries and 45 states and provinces in North America (see our Subscriber Survey results).

A word about us: SafeKids.com and NetFamilyNews.org teamed up last year to bring you the best online-safety info and the latest home- and school-relevant Web news. The newsletter works hard to be interactive - so send us your questions and feedback. With permission, we often publish your comments to benefit the whole community.

Here's our lineup for this last week of May:


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Filtering by ISP (Internet service provider)

As many of you know, families have a lot of online-safety options - Internet acceptable-use policies and family contracts, parental supervision, filtering software and services, monitoring software, desktop management "tools," and combinations of all of the above. (Reports on many of these are archived in the Net Family News site.)

This week let's give filtering a closer look. Generally, when people think of filtering the first thing that comes to mind is the "client-based" kind - software products installed on individual PCs. SafeKids.com's Larry Magid recently reviewed some of the most well-known filtering products, and there are many more listed in the searchable "tools" database at GetNetWise.org. There are positives and negatives that go with any software solution. The upside for client-based filtering, basically, is individual family control. Parents can research the blocking criteria various products use and pick the one with criteria and features that best fit their family's needs, then configure the software as they see fit. The downside is the fact that the software actually has to be installed, and updates are up to the customer.

That's why some families prefer to use filtered Internet service providers (called "server-based" filtering). Since the filtering software "lives" on the ISP's server, that's where the updating has to happen; the customer doesn't have to worry about software installation or updates. That's quite a plus for this option, if the ISP is doing a good job of updating its service and its servers are running all the time. Larry Magid this week reviewed one of these ISPs: FamilyClick.com. Another such service that we think will have broad appeal (because the company consciously steers clear of any particular political or religious agenda with its filtering criteria) is Dotsafe.com, which offers free filtering to any school in the United States (for details, please see our report on Dotsafe). For a useful roundup of many filtered ISPs, see an article in USAToday last year.

Of course there can be disadvantages to filtering ISPs, too, depending on the user. If parental involvement isn't part of a family's online-safety equation, one problem is that a tech-literate child could simply reconfigure the family modem to access a different (unfiltered) ISP - maybe that of a friend, covertly providing her own ISP account and password. The other is what critics call "centralized management" - the fact that one filtering system or set of criteria for blocking Web sites doesn't work for everybody. If you're considering the ISP option, check out the company's blocking criteria or at least its mission statement. It also helps to see if the service allows for any customization by the customer.

Beyond client- and server-based filtering there is one other category: what we call hybrid filtering, which puts software on both the ISP's server and the family's PC and also combines technologies. Three such options are myFilter and PlanetGood, both of which bring in the human factor (Web site screening by real people - what a concept!), and the BAIR Filtering System, which uses sophisticated artificial intelligence in the filtering process.

One other Web info resource parents should know about, if they'd like to see filtering in the context of other types of online-safety "tools," is the searchable database at GetNetWise.org, a nonprofit service in Washington supported by a number of large companies in the Internet indusry. We know of some products and services not in the database, but it's pretty comprehensive, nonetheless.

If any of you use a filtering ISP and are having either a great experience or second thoughts, please email us your comments via feedback@netfamilynews.org. Your insights can be helpful to many!

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Web News Briefs

  1. Yet another virus & protection info

    A new virus called "Cybernet," again affecting Microsoft Outlook program users, is floating around, reports CNET. The subject of its carrier email is "You've Got Mail!!!" So don't open an attachment in an email message like that.

    In an earlier report this week, CNET assures readers, "You, too, can protect your computer from viruses," then offers some practical advice from computer security experts. For example: Besides installing anti-virus software, simply avoid opening any email attachments with the extensions ".vbs," ".exe," ".com" and ".js," advises one antivirus researcher. Check out the article for more advice. Also, Microsoft.com has a page on the VBS/Loveletter Virus, as well as on its "Outlook Email Security Update" (see also our report on MS's update in last week's News Briefs). Finally, ZDNet recommends several downloadable software applications that can "vaccinate your PC" by backing up files (so they don't get wiped out if a virus does get to your system).

  2. Online daily

    Nearly one-third of Americans 12 and older go online every day, and 44% of those Internet users are online an hour or more in an average day, reports WebTrendsWatch. We were also interested to note that, for the most part, home is where the Internet is. The ACNielsen survey found that 69% of Internet users go online most often at home, 17% at work, 7% at school, and only 2% at a library. Email is still the "killer app" - 86% of the people surveyed said it's their most common Net activity - though nearly half have bought a product or service online. (If you don't find the item at the URL above, it's been archived, so go here).

  3. Privacy tangle

    Apparently for the same reason, the Clinton administration and the Federal Trade Commission disagree on legislating consumer online-privacy protection. It seems the White House says legislation - as opposed to Internet industry self-regulation - would put a damper on e-commerce development and the benefits it would bring to the US economy. The FTC says the opposite: "Failure to put new federal privacy-protection standards [legislation] in place would undermine consumer confidence and significantly retard the development of commerce in cyberspace," says the FTC, according to the New York Times. Online-privacy legislation has been introduced in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, but action from Congress is not expected anytime soon. ZDNet reports that the FTC's move shows it has given up on Net industry self-regulation - a major policy shift for the Commission.

    And in a new twist on the road to consumer privacy, genealogy - an extremely popular past-time among Net users - came up in Congress this week. Wired News reports, "During a privacy hearing Thursday before a House Judiciary subcommittee, Rep. Ed Pease (R-Ind.) said the growing number of Web sites that allow people to trace their families' history was a threat that called for legislative action." The article highlights the confusion in Washington about what the real threats to consumer privacy, as well as freedom of information, are.

    Privacy is such a key Internet issue these days that news services are maintaining complete indexes of all their coverage on the subject. For anyone researching the subject, here's the New York Times's index.

  4. Hate sites' changing strategies

    Hate groups' aggressive Internet strategies may have increased their visibility but not their influence, according to Wired News. In a report that includes useful links to a number of hate watchdog groups' Web sites, Wired reports that the hate Web sites are adjusting their strategies, however, beginning to focus more on the how-to's of "lone wolf activism" than on recruiting. Page 2 of Wired's article explains. (For more insights, please see our interview with Ray Franklin, publisher of The Hate Directory.) Wired reports that the actual number of hate sites on the Web is open to debate, with hate-watchers estimating anywhere from 400 to 2,000.

    In related news, a little-known search engine using questionable technology is causing concern among hate watchdog groups. The search engine - Yep.com, which uses software to rank "a limited database of Web sites" by popularity and quality - gives a high rating to racist sites. Wired News explains how and why.

  5. E-music: Napster's new start

    Despite a bunch of lawsuits, the company that brought music-swapping on the Internet to new heights is getting a new CEO and an infusion of $15 million. Though some venture capital firms are reluctant to invest in Napster because of "the legal cloud" hanging over it, CNET reports VC firm Hummer Winblad's $15 million investment is just the start. Maybe that's partly because of recent research (by Webnoize) showing that more than half of all college students use Napster at least weekly.

    In other Web music news, music industry executives tell Congress to lie low and let the lawsuits play out, and a new entertainment site with significant investment from the conventional-music world - Scour.com - "marks a significant shift in the roiling battle over copyright protection in the digital age", the New York Times reports. Like Napster, Scour.com has a feature called Scour Exchange that lets users access the music files on each other's hard drives. But so far, record companies and their industry association aren't suing Scour.com; Napster gets to "enjoy" setting precedent.

  6. UK view on 'e-generation'

    Bill Gates ranked right behind Albert Einstein and Mahatma Gandhi among "young high-fliers" (media age, 23) polled by British news weekly The Economist. By way of explanation, "Mr. Gates's heroic stature may be better understood when you know that three-quarters of them expect e-commerce to be a revolution on a par with the industrial revolution, no less," The Economist reports. The survey was conducted among essay-writers (representing 500 universities) competing for the "Wings of Excellence" award that was given out this week at an International Management Symposium in St. Gallen, Switzerland. The Economist and its polling partner, UK market researchers MORI, asked respondents other interesting questions, including "where power will lie 25 years from now," giving some insight into the thinking of young Europeans - at least a fairly elite group of them. So don't miss the magazine's report.

  7. Net changes life in Japan

    According to one Japanese research firm, Japan is set to become the ichiban (No. 1) user of the Internet next year, reports the New York Times. That means change is afoot in the Japanese way of life. In a culture where individuals have never been encouraged to stand out, the Internet is "making celebrities of small farmers…, empowering women, changing the way people apply for jobs and schools, and generally chipping away at traditional patterns of behavior," according to the Times in this long, readable piece that's more about Japanese culture than technology.

  8. Sex-offender listings on the Web

    Four years ago the US Congress required states to maintain registries of sex offenders, so their movements can be tracked once they leave prison. Since then 21 states have put those registries on the Internet, according to the New York Times. Now there is a growing debate about whether these registries should be on the Web. Proponents say they're valuable and accessible, the Times reports, and "critics say online registries, while popular with the public, are a 'quick fix' to a complex issue and could stigmatize and victimize marginal offenders and ultimately produce more sex crimes than they prevent."

  9. Recess is best

    In a fun "man-on-the-street" (or, rather, "-on-the-playground") article, the New York Times reports there is strong anecdotal evidence that, even in Silicon Valley, kids still choose recess over equity in an Internet startup. But you'll want to read the article to see what the kids themselves say.

  10. Dinosaur downloads

    If the new Disney movie "Dinosaur" is not enough for fans of large ancient reptiles in your house, here's help: ZDNet swears by three "killer" download sites. They include screensavers, dinosaur audio, and a game that lets kids build dinosaur skeletons. If your kids or students have favorite sites they'd like to share, do have them email them to us!

* * * *

Getting girls into computing

So far the computer science field has let girls down. Girls make up only 16% of high school students who take computer science advanced placement tests, and women receive less than 28% of computer science bachelor's degrees, down from a high of 37% in 1984, according to the latest research, cited in Wired News.

Part of the reason for those low numbers, researchers are finding, is that girls approach computers differently from the way computer science is taught. Girls view computers as tools for accomplishing goals that aren't necessarily computer-related (the computer is the means to an end); boys are fascinated with the computer itself (it's the end, not the means). That's according to a study in progress called "Computing for a Purpose", part of what researchers have discovered during a just-ended three-year project designed to make computer-science teaching more relevant to girls.

Gender-equity training was key to the project. "Researchers from the Washington Research Institute and the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon gathered 250 Advanced Placement Computer Science teachers across the [US] in summer sessions to train them in two tracks: C++ [computer programming language] and gender equity." Here's the researchers' description. The goal was to increase the size of the talent pool available to high-tech companies by getting more women into it, and the results so far look promising. A researcher said some teachers who attended the summer sessions have "doubled or even tripled the number of girls enrolling in their AP computing courses."

Here are more useful links for further research:

Our thanks to Wired News for those last two links. If a girl in your house or school has found other resources helpful, tell her to email us the URLs!

* * * *

The Net on TV: Subscribers write, book recommended

Debi in Colorado sent us a comment on how last Sunday night's episode of "Touched By an Angel" (CBS TV) portrayed the Internet:

"I watched the episode about the Internet and thought it was very good ('Touched' is always good). It handled the matter reasonably and responsibly, and gave the message that it wasn't the Internet that was evil, but the use of it by evil forces, and pointed out that this is true in all other areas of life. To me, this message is refreshing. I am tired of people (parents) who would rather blame something else rather than deal with the values they instill (or don't) in their children, whether it be the Internet, video games, Pokemon cards...."

Laurie in Montana tells us that, for her and her family, the show was a useful reminder:

"I watched the "Touched By an Angel" episode dealing with the Internet and have to admit that it scared me. I have 3 children, all teenagers, who chat on the Net. I myself am an avid Net chatter. I enjoy talking to all the people and never really stop to think that I really don't know these people, and why am I sharing anything personal with them? I at that time did talk to my children and once again cautioned them to be careful and never to meet anyone they meet on the Net in private.... I thank the "Touched By an Angel" producers for making me more aware of what's really out there."

* *

Editor's Note: These comments remind us of a great resource for both parenting in general, as well as online-parenting: a book by mother-and-daughter team Evelyn and Karin Petersen: SAMS Teach Yourself e-Parenting Today (SAMS Publishing, January 2000, 310pp, $17.99). You can find it online at Amazon.com or BN.com or in most bookstores.

Here's what Michael Pastore, editor of BookLovers Review, says about this "e-Parenting" book:

"Ready or not, the Internet is here in our schools and homes. Computers are powerful tools, and - let us not forget - potentially dangerous ones. Children unsupervised, or children who receive poor computer instruction, will become at best technologically illiterate and at worst harmed by misuse and over-use of these tremendous tools. Fortunately, for kids are who receive the right training, the Internet offers many remarkable benefits. The great virtue of [this book] is the way it teaches us to use technology well, while reminding us that creating a caring and enjoyable relationship with our children is the most important parenting skill of all."

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That does it for this week. Have a great weekend!

Sincerely,

Net Family News
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